Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

  Yitzhak Sapir   
---------------------------------
  

On 3/5/07, Pere Porta wrote:

 > I read in an electronic search

 program (BW) that such a word as YUQAX (Gn  > 18:4) is a passive 

Qal form. In the same program I read that YUQAM (Gn 4:24)  > 

is a Hoph'al form.  >  > Vowel and dagesh structure is the same

for both.  >  > Then do you think this division (Qal passive <>

 Hoph'al)  is right for the  > brought two cases?  > What is really

 Qal passive?                           [PP] 

 

   Dear Pere,    In the first case, the word yuqqax is from the

 root  lqx.  This is  also a root where the  piel 

(the active counterpart to pual) and hiphil

 (the active  counterpart to hophal)  is not prominent.  It

 is therefore very likely that this is a Qal passive. 

   In the second case, the word yuqqam is from the root qwm

.  This is a non-  transitive root in the Qal (to "stand")

 and therefore it is unlikely  to be passive  of the Qal.  

In contrast, the Hiphil of the Qal is transitive and has a 

passive.  It is therefore more likely to be a passive of 

the Hiphil.....                 [YS]

                                                         

   Well, this is wrong on two counts:

   Gen 18:4  --  the root LQX appears mostly in Qal, however

 15 different occurrences of this root are attested in the Pual;

 most of them in the perfect - the Lamed intact, dagesh forte in

 the middle letter of the root as is standard, though no root

 letter is missing in the perfect.

    There is no sense to ask why the root is not attested in Piel

 because we have no way of addressing this question to ancient

 speakers, scribes or editors.

   

    Pere's second question is about YUQQAM , Gen 4:24. This is

 clearly derived from the root NQM, to take revenge, as a glance in the verse 
and

 its context makes clear. This is one of three attested cases of

 the root in Pual, and the dagesh forte, again, is standard. 

The root occurs mostly in  Qal, but also in Niph'al, another

 passive Binyan, as well as in  Piel and  Hitpael.

 

   As for passive Qal, what is meant is really the passive 

participle,though occurrences in other tenses  - or aspects! - 

canot be ruled out. I say this because in Arabic, where there is the

 equivalent of Niphal - ")Infa(ala" -, a passive form of Qal

 does also exists.

 

 Uri Hurwitz

 

 

 

 

are 

 

 
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>From kwrandolph AT gmail.com  Fri Mar  9 16:56:21 2007
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From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
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David:

A few days ago Rolf gave the following table referring to past references:

QATAL:             7,446      53.5 %
WEQATAL           357      5,9 %
YIQTOL            1,027       7.5 %
WEYIQTOL           50       4.4 %
WAYYIQTOL    13,539     93.1 %
Part act                 1,739    32.7 %
Part pass                 364    33.1 %
Infin con.                760    57.2 %
Infin abs                   86    29.8 %

Now, when one adds to that that when one reads an unpointed text, the
WEYIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL are indistinguishable and possibly were not
separate in Biblical times, the past referent of the two combined is
most likely more like the QATAL than as in the chart.

Many years ago I studied Russian (long since forgotten) which
grammaticalized both tense and aspect. Those who have kept it up can
correct me on this, but at the time I noticed that the majority of
past tense verbs used were also perfective aspect, while the majority
of future tense verbs were imperfective. (That could have been the
pattern just of the materials chosen for class, it's been too long
ago.)

I don't claim that Biblical Hebrew aspects are exactly the same as
Russian, but I notice that the aspectual use as far as time referent
seems to follow a similar pattern. What that says (at least to me) is
that there is a certain amount of implied tense information within the
aspectual system without the tense itself being grammaticalized within
the language. And as I stated before, that implied tense could very
well be from the psychological understanding of the speaker of
complete vs. incomplete (in simple terms).

You claim that there was a shift from aspect to tense, can you show
that development among unambiguous native speakers from the early
(Torah) to late pre-Exile (Jeremiah)? What evidence of that shift can
be gleaned from Exile writers (Ezekiel, Daniel)? Can that change be
demonstrated among post Exile authors in Tanakh, or is it found only
in post-Tanakh Hebrew writings?

Does a study of cognate languages show that shift from aspect to
tense? For example, since Torah predates written Ugarit, does Torah
Hebrew show more aspectual usage than does Ugaritic? We have several
centuries of Aramaic texts, do they show that shift as well?

Rolf claims that he could find no diachronic differences, can you?

It's not that I utterly reject your claim, it's just that I need to
see more evidence.

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.

On 3/8/07, David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com> wrote:
> I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment.
>
> The problem as I see it with most treatments of the verbal system is
> that they insufficiently reckon with the shifting nature of the verbal
> system. That is, if we are correct in seeing a continuum from
> aspect-only-marking to tense-only-marking, most treatments seem to place
> the language as at entirely one end of the spectrum. The issue appears
> to be black-and-white for them and either-or, when in fact there would
> seem to be elements of truth to both: Hebrew moves from aspect-marking
> (so the aspectual treatments) to tense-marking (so the tense-marking
> treatments). For BH, we would appear to be in an intermediate stage, so
> either aspect-prominent (not aspect-only) or tense-prominent (not
> tense-only). (There is, however, a third "modality-prominent" option,
> but I leave that aside here.)
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
>
>
> > On 08/03/2007 23:10, David Kummerow wrote:
> >  > Hi Karl,
> >  >
> >  > I agree.
> >  >
> >  > The point I wished to make was simply that there are exceptions for the
> >  > aspect-only view to deal with. You have conceded this, I think.
> >  > Similarly, there are exceptions for the tense-only view to deal with. 
> > If
> >  > this is the scenario, could it be that BH does note COMPLETELY
> >  > grammaticalise either? That is, is it possible for BH to be on the way
> >  > to grammaticalising tense? Hence all the debate where both sides have
> >  > latched onto part of the picture but perhaps not the entire picture? I
> >  > prefer to see the language as tense-prominent rather than tense-only or
> >  > aspect-only.
> >  >
> >  >
> > It strikes me that there are very good reasons for a language to be, and
> > remain fairly stably, in some mixture of tense-prominent and
> > aspect-prominent. Efficient human communication needs to specify both
> > tense and aspect, but certain combinations of these are more common than
> > others. One strategy which some languages use, like Russian, and to a
> > large extent Greek and English, is to have separate mechanisms for
> > indicating tense and indicating aspect, allowing for a two-dimensional
> > set of verb forms. But in Hebrew and other Semitic languages there are
> > not two separate morphological or syntactic ways of distinguishing tense
> > and aspect, and so the limited number of possible variations are
> > distributed across the common combinations of tense and aspect, in a way
> > which is not as neat and logical as the Russian system, or for that
> > matter the English one. But the system does seem to work, although there
> > does seem to have been a slow long term shift from what may well have
> > been an originally completely aspectual system to the completely
> > tense-based system of later Hebrew.
> >
>
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